March 2026 news

Annual General Meeting followup

We held our Annual General Meeting on February 24. Thanks to all who attended and participated, and congratulations to the three new board members we welcomed at the meeting: Joshua Edward, Togan Rivera and Jeffrey Roy.

We’ll be following up soon with THZ members about the motion voted on at the meeting.

2026 precepts

We’re planning a precepts ceremony later this year. If you’re interested in sewing a rakusu and formally receiving the bodhisattva precepts, email [email protected] for more information.

Soto Zen North America newsletter

We wanted to share the latest newsletter from Soto Zen North America. This one has a dharma talk from Tonen O’Connor, as well as other updates from the denomination.

Invitation: online baikaryu lecture

Sotoshu has extended this invitation to an online lecture about baikaryu, a type of Japanese Buddhist hymn. All are welcome to join. You can also learn more about baikaryu in this video.

Date and time: March 28, 2026 at 4 pm Pacific Time (8 pm Atlantic, 7 pm Eastern).

Lecturer: Shinryu Okuma

Lecture Topic: Mujo Gowasan

Zoom Link (meeting ID: 871 7391 9547) | Passcode: 459487

Study groups

Friday reading group: new book

The Friday reading group has recently started reading Being-Time: A Practitioner's Guide to Dōgen's Shōbōgenzō Uji by Shinshu Roberts.

No need to buy any books—we read aloud together and then discuss. The group meets on Zoom at 10:15 am Atlantic (9:15 Eastern) every Friday. Anyone can join at any time.

Nagarjuna and emptiness study group

This group has been meeting on Zoom on Saturday afternoons at 2pm, discussing Nagarjuna’s teachings on emptiness. We originally said it would go through mid-March, but it’s continuing for at least a few more weeks.

If you have any questions, you can email Matt MacDonald at [email protected]. You may also want to check out this presentation from the first session.